BAFTA crowns narrative winner

Kingdom Come: Deliverance II won the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Games Award for Narrative on Friday, April 17, at the 22nd BAFTA Games Awards in London. (bafta.org, youtube.com) BAFTA announced the 2026 nominations on March 12 and said 42 games were nominated across 17 categories. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II was among the games listed, and the ceremony took place at Queen Elizabeth Hall at the Southbank Centre. (bafta.org) The category has existed for a decade. BAFTA said in an April 2 retrospective that the first Narrative winner was Inside in 2017, followed by winners including Hades in 2021, Unpacking in 2022, Baldur’s Gate 3 in 2024, and Metaphor: ReFantazio in 2025. (bafta.org, bafta.org) BAFTA’s own write-up of the category described narrative games as works that create “memorable experiences” and stay with players after the game ends. In the same piece, Hades creative director Greg Kasavin said games can make a character’s trials feel “almost as though they were our own.” (bafta.org) That framing fits Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, a single-player role-playing game from Czech studio Warhorse Studios that follows Henry in fifteenth-century Bohemia. Publisher PLAION released it on February 4, 2025, for PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 5 Pro, and Xbox Series X|S. (press.plaion.com, warhorsestudios.cz) Warhorse says it focuses on role-playing games with “strong storytelling and engaging cinematic experiences,” and BAFTA’s 2026 nominations marked the studio’s first BAFTA nominations. BAFTA also listed Tom McKay among the first-time acting nominees for his performance in the game. (warhorsestudios.cz, bafta.org) The game arrived with commercial momentum before the award. Warhorse said it sold 1 million copies in 24 hours and 2 million copies in under two weeks after launch, milestones reported across trade outlets in February 2025. (ign.com, rpgsite.net) BAFTA’s recent commentary on the category has stressed range rather than one house style. Creative director Wren Brier said the Narrative award gives “blockbuster games with epic cinematic stories” and “small experimental games” an equal shot, and this year the trophy went to a historical role-playing game built around voiced scenes, political stakes, and player decisions. (bafta.org, youtube.com) The result puts Kingdom Come: Deliverance II into the same BAFTA lineage as Inside, Hades, and Baldur’s Gate 3. For BAFTA’s narrative category, the latest winner was a sequel that bet on character, performance, and consequence. (bafta.org, youtube.com)